15 minutes?

[mdlbear]

All it takes to stay ahead of clutter is 15 minutes/day. According to my handy LJ tag search, the last time I spent that time was April 13th. I have just spent roughly the last two hours decluttering the office, and the results are barely noticable.

(Of course, that's partly because one of the two boxes I took up to the attic came out of the filing cabinet -- all of the tax returns and raw data for the 1990's. That was so I would have room for the 2006 file, so that I'd have someplace to put the rapidly-accumulating 2007 data. But I haven't started filing that, yet.)

In order to finish off the box of 2006 everything-but-the-taxes, I had to add the banking and investment statements. Which were in a pile under the 2007 statements. Which were being overtowered by the pile of charity requests for the last four months or so. Which are now in a box that is sitting where the 2006 box used to be. Which is on top of the previous batch of charity requests. (We save up most charity requests and sort through them in December when we're feeling generous and have a better idea of how much money we're ending up with. We may have to distribute the load better, or at least do more triage on the fly.)

The result is that several piles are shorter, and there's more room in the filing cabinet, but the total number of boxes of largely-unsorted stuff has remained roughly constant. Discouraging.

Elsewhen today, I spent a couple of hours uncluttering the file server. Next post upwhen, to make it more easily skipped by those not interested in the details of which directory ends up where.

I'm estimating that we'll be in this house for roughly another decade (after which we will most likely be forced to sell it to pay for our retirement). It will probably take us approximately that long to clean out the garage attic.

Comments

[lisa-marli.livejournal.com]

With our storage modules in place, we figure we can never move. The thought is Way Too Scary.
Then again, we haven't gone through two major remodels, and so the house is paid in full. Can't beat that with a pointy stick.
But I have to work on filing and boxing and putting into that storage module all the older MythSoc and personal files.
And now I have CC26 too! Whee!

[mbumby.livejournal.com]

Hmph. I don't believe it. I don't think I could process the snail-mail I receive in only 15 minutes a day. And the fact that I can't completely process it in the time I *do* spend means it stacks up and defeats me utterly.

[mdlbear]

I can handle the routine bills and junk mail; it's the magazines that defeat me.

[mbumby.livejournal.com]

I've stopped with all the subscriptions -- except for Sing Out!, which I'm about 4 years behind in reading -- maybe more like 6 -- but I save 1 copy each of the catalogs (alphabetical, recycle the old one), because *sometimes* I realize that I want something, or someone asks me where to get something, and occasionally they do follow through with their threat that this may be my last issue. But I don't (usually) look at them. I get mail for 5 different bank and credit unions (for 8 accounts) and have realized that keeping my books in quicken is actually quicker and easier than doing them entirely on my "green sheets", so I need to transfer the information there. Ditto with the utility bills. And I at least look at the begs. I don't support political causes as much as I used to, and I HATE the way they always try to guilt-trip me, but I still occasionally think I need to support a particular cause at a particular time. Hm. But even opening each envelope and moving the recyclables from the trash might take more time than what was left over from processing bills and important mail.